God Of War Gameplay Trailer, Norse Mythology and Fatherhood

The stunningly revamped God of War which opened up Sony’s E3 press conference awed the audience and media both at the Shrine Auditorium and around the world with a spine chilling, mysterious orchestra and choir that accompanied the glorious reveal.

Santa Monica Studio have been working on this title for several years now as Corey Barlog, Creative Director said on the PlayStation blog that they aimed to, “create a different, better and truly more memorable experience than before.” The beautiful graphics, revamped combat and seamless cinematic cut scenes all indicate how different this God of War will be in comparison to its predecessors in so many different ways.

Gameplay Engineering Lead Jeet Shroff stated, “this is a new chapter for Kratos and the franchise. It’s a big pillar of the narrative, of the story, exploring this relationship and humanising Kratos.” Technical Director Mihir Sheth commented, “For us it’s exciting we get to bring something new. I don’t think people were really ready for what we were going to show.”

In a detailed PlayStation Blog, director Cory Barlog The lack of a number in the God of War title doesn’t mean it’s a remastering for Kratos’ origin story, but rather it’s a continuation of the series as it features an older Kratos alongside his young son featured in the game-play reveal.

At E3, Barlog spoke in a little more depth regarding the different cultural mythological belief systems and how they coexisted with each other however were, “separated by geography” basically Kratos took a journey from Greece to Norway.

Traditionally the God of War Series has focused on Greek mythology, however in an interview with Polygon, Barlog said that when looking at the previous God of War games, they primarily focused on Kratos’ origin story. Transitioning over to Norse mythology means that they’re able to focus on a more personal chapter of Kratos’ life.

“I feel like Kratos’ origin story has been told. That was the Greek era. And when I started imagining this full game, I started seeing this massive timeline come out and realising the Greek era of games was just the beginning of the character.”

Barlog in an interview with IGN also commented, “We’ve already told the story of The Hulk. We want to tell the story of Banner now.”

Barlog additionally commented that Kratos isn’t in the Viking era however, despite the Norse setting.

“A lot of people think Norse, they think Viking, but there’s really this amazing prehistory — the migration, and then prior to that, the pre-migration era,” Barlog explained. “IUn the Viking era, they always talked about, ‘The gods have abandoned us. ‘Thor and Loki and Odin all walked the Earth at one point, but they’re not around anymore. [The vikings] fight for them, but they’re not there. This idea that we’re at is saying, ‘We’re at prehistory point, where gods did walk the Earth, when monsters were real before they became extinct.’

“It’s a fun space to be in because it allows us to paint our own image of Norse mythology as opposed to anyone else’s,” Barlog said.

Change in setting and plot isn’t the only thing that’s different in this God of War as we see Kratos who is a father indicative of the gameplay trailer opening with a young boy playing outside who just so happens to be Kratos’ son.

Barlog in the same interview spoke about how having a child of his own actually helped with the reinvention of Kratos as well as the God of War series.

“You have a kid and it kind of changes the way you see things and how I approached problems creatively,” Barlog said. “And I thought, ‘There’s some fascinating potential here for what Kratos would be like if given a second chance.’”